<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>The Eight Years Celebration by LeoOtherLands</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28903584">The Eight Years Celebration</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeoOtherLands/pseuds/LeoOtherLands'>LeoOtherLands</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>All the Broken Pieces [26]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Baking, Drabble, Friendship, Gen, Gift Fic, Memorials, Memories, Remembrance, thoughtfulness</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 10:40:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>875</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28903584</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeoOtherLands/pseuds/LeoOtherLands</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Bilbo lost friends the day of the Battle of Five Armies. And sometimes... he just has to remember them...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>All the Broken Pieces [26]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1386661</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Eight Years Celebration</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He puttered about in his kitchen. He wasn’t sure why he did this but he always did somehow, on this particular day, when he tells himself he should be doing something more than making tea and baking cakes and biscuits. <em> Why </em> he should be doing anything more than this, he had never really made up his mind. He just always felt there was something he personally should be about. But he never could quite decide what that thing was.</p><p>So, he stoked the fire under the kettle and dusted his hands with flour, and then he forgot he had flour on his hands, when he got the cakes in the oven, so the flour ended up on his face and his bottom because he absently placed his hands there and stretched as he thought. He never really noticed. Muttering to himself and minding the singing kettle and the sweet cakes in the gloriously hot oven, he sort of missed the white marks all over him.</p><p>Perhaps he would have took more note if anyone else had been about, but he’d told all of his younger companions he would be out and about today, and even turned Fordo out of the hole, to mind himself awhile. Bag End was empty, apart from him, and Bilbo hardly noticed anything but the meandering thoughts in his head.</p><p>The dwarves’ unexpected arrival on his doorstep was always one thing that popped up on this particular day, the first thing, actually. It had all been so terribly stressful and confusing, at the time. He even remembered sitting in some dark corner of his cellar, or was it the pantry, he is never certain on this point, and taking a few nips of something strong in that private space, to steady his nerves. Now, he wishes he could have that day back and that the whole troupe of bearded, self-invited houseguests would show up on his doorstep again.</p><p>This, of course, is not about to happen and he is sorry for it. Perhaps that is part of the reason he always seems to find himself just pacing his kitchen on this day, every year. Because he feels he should be setting that tea and searching out every dish in his cupboards, in an attempt to serve fourteen uninvited persons, who suddenly showed up at his door. But there is only him and he is spotted with flour and really making far too many cakes, even by Hobbit standards. Mostly because he needs to do <em> something </em> and making cakes is at least useful. He can pawn them off on Frodo and his other young friends, when tomorrow comes and he feels more normal again. More able to face the day and the sunshine and not wander his kitchen with white fingerprints on his cheeks and the back of his trousers.</p><p>Next, of course, after the now vaguely remembered, but much loved, day of the tea party, are thoughts and faded bits of the journey to the Lonely Mountain. All the little things are what stand out most. The looks on faces and the warmth of bodies, when they all huddled together against rain or wind. Those are moments that stand out even more than the first glimpse of the Mountain itself, caught from the top of a bobbing barrel, in a cold river that had given <em> him </em> a cold on his birthday, and ensured he could hardly form proper words for reason of a horribly stuffed nose.</p><p>Somehow, he always got even more distracted at this point, so much so his tea steeped too long and his cakes threatened to burn. Some of his biscuits might even have been a bit too crisp around the edges. Not that he noticed or cared and not that any of his friends ever dared to mention it when he handed out his overflow of baking the following day. Despite what he thought, he was always found out in his harmless lies of  “going out” or “wanting some time to write.” It wasn’t that hard to muddle through, after all. The anniversary of the Battle of Five Armies was a notable day, all around.</p><p>But no one ever mentioned anything, of course, and Bilbo never suspected, while he fussed in his kitchen, rambling and muttering to himself as he thought over his memories, his friends were often hiding in the verge, under the window, watching and listening in the unlikely event the elder Hobbit would need anything. He didn’t need to know that, they felt, and likely it was for the best. By the time Bilbo sat down in a chair by the kitchen fire, <em> not </em> his comfortable armchair, not this day, and poured himself a small cup of tea and set a few cakes on his plate he wouldn’t eat and watched the shadows play over the walls in the evening, he was glad to be alone. At least for a bit.</p><p>Sometimes one just needed to sit still and ponder. To recall those that wouldn’t come back for tea and cake some unexpected night. A happy reunion out of the fearless dark of a Shire night. In the end, that was always the outcome of the need to do <em> something</em>. To sit. And recall.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I had lunch with you today... I put black pepper on the cottage cheese the way you always used to do, and thought of you, while I held my coffee mug. It's funny how you've been gone eight years already but I can still hear you sometimes. I see you a lot when I look in the mirror. I've got your face and your damn wispy hair. I still there and ponder like you always used to do and sometimes I swear I act just like you. You know what else is funny? How I realize I'll look even more like you, as time goes on and I move into other stages of my life. Sometimes I'm half scared of how I'll change, but then I remember I'll look like you and that makes me glad.</p><p>Yours always,<br/>Your Son</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>